Friday, July 21, 2017

Europe (Part 2)

This is the second part of a series of posts I will be making about our family trip to Europe.
This post will be about the rest of our time in Rome.

In the morning we took the subway into Rome to visit the Roman Forum. I was hoping to see more birds there because it was a bit more of a park setting.



William admiring the view

A song alerted us to the presence of a bird with a pretty high pitched song. After a moment of searching through the bird book we figured out that it was a Serin.
Serin 

A pair of Rose-ringed Parakeets were hanging out in one of the tall umbrella pines.
Rose-ringed Parakeet

Rose-ringed Parakeets

Yellow-legged Gull

I think that Europeans are lucky with their Hooded Crows, which look much prettier than normal American Crows.
Hooded Crow

The Colosseum

A young Yellow-legged Gull

In the afternoon we took the bus north of Rome to the town of Tivoli. There was a beautiful park there which I really enjoyed, although we didn't end up seeing too many birds there.
Our first Chaffinch


Enjoying the view


Walking down the thin European streets

The next day we went to the ruins of Ostia Antica. We saw some nice birds like Kestrels, Serins, Rose-ringed Parakeets, Hoopoes, and a Little Egret.

Kestrel

The ruins
 We went to the Vatican, but there were hardly any birds to be seen there.

Sunset on the Mediterranean sea 
 On our last morning in Italy we walked a few kilometers to a nature reserve where we saw a handful of lifers, although we only had time to stay for a few minutes.
Greenfinch

Hooded Crow

Honey Buzzard


Little Grebe

Common Sandpiper

Stay tuned for the next part!
I was also in Wapusk National Park for a week at the beginning of July, so I will make some posts about that as well!